I wonder if the percentage affects things? Obviously there are more male characters then female. Given that being the case in conventional story telling, from which video games often draw plots from, that is not unexpected. Not saying it is right or fair, merely a matter of fact a the moment. But I digress. Now, lets say for an off the head number, the split is 30/70, with female protagonists as the 30. Now, of these characters, you have a small percentage that are worth a damn, while most the others are cardboard cut-out caricatures. The problem then comes into perspective a little, as lets say only 10% of either are any real quality. That would be, out of a hundred, 3 quality females for every 7 male characters, then a sea of crap on both sides. Of course it would give a bad initial image about female portrayal with a set up like that. There are fewer female protagonists and fewer still good ones.

That said, perhaps it is because too few are using female characters in games in general, that it decreases the chance of a good one. Less chances at bat meaning fewer hits, to put it another way. It is my idea that a portion of the problem is that there is an added level of criticism on female characters that decreases the appeal of using them in a story where gender is less important then the character themselves. Now, I am not saying this is the only issue when it comes to females, or minorities in general, not by a long shot, but I can't help but think there is a connection to some degree there. If you can choose between an aspect that will have extra scrutiny, and therefore more effort either defending the choice or making sure to not unintentionally offend, versus one without the extra baggage, people will tend to choose the easier path, for better or worse.

Schadrach:That is the source of the 77 cents number. It does not group by career or education. As you start comparing on other factors, the gap gets smaller and smaller, which is why the 77 cents number is so often used (as the goal of those persons is to make it as big a problem as possible).

That depends on the factors that you compare and how you compare them, I would imagine.

Yes, yes it does. As I mentioned in the post you quoted from, studies trying to do exactly that typically come up with numbers in the 0.93-1.07 range, depending on how they treat the confounding variables. 0.95-0.98 is typical of the results, or a 2-5% gap that can't be attributed to other known influences.

Schadrach:If I were to compare my total earnings to a theoretical woman who is in the same position and paid the same hourly rate (I say theoretical because we are a small business and I'm a one person department) but has the work habits of most of my female coworkers (that is to say, eschews non-mandatory overtime despite it being offered) she would make "73 cents on the dollar" merely due to differences in hours. I am typically working 50 hour weeks, while every female employee we have is typically working 40 hour weeks. Many of the production employees work even longer weeks than I do. The thing is, we're not unusual in that regard -- the vast majority of overtime is worked by men.

Is this based on research as well or just personal experience? And is this comparing like jobs to like jobs? Because the women and men where I work spend equal amounts of time in the office (assuming we're talking about people in the same position; support people don't spend as much time as people doing the "main" work).

There is research showing that men work a large majority of overtime (and that is certainly the case at my workplace as well).

The *example* was based on me positing another theoretical individual who was paid at the same hourly rate I was, but opted not to take available non-mandatory overtime. Literally the "no overtime vs average overtime" gap at my workplace has one earning "73 cents on the dollar". It's a side effect of the number not being based on pay rates but on total earnings, and overtime being paid at an increased rate. A demonstration of the concept and how much difference it can make fairly quickly, nothing more.

Schadrach:Differences in work history is another. Pregnancy is bad for a woman's career, because it means significant time off of work, which effects promotions (between missing opportunities to prove oneself and needing to get back up to speed), in much the same fashion as prolonged illness does. Whereas men in hourly positions tend to be chomping at the bit for more overtime when their wife/girlfriend is pregnant or has recently had a child, to soften the financial stress of, well, babies being expensive and the mother necessarily missing some work.

The fact that maternity leave isn't required to be provided (which allows the father to earn money while his wife can't because she's recovering from what can amount to a surgical procedure) likely has something to do with this as well.

Even if maternity leave is provided, a childbirth is going to delay a woman's career by delaying promotion, maternity leave not being required exacerbates that.

Schadrach:We could talk about that if you like. There aren't a whole lot of transgender or intersex characters out there to even use as examples, that's for certain. There's Poison, and Kaine from Neir, and at that point I'm drawing a blank. Interestingly, the male presenting "monster" that Kaine's infected with is her gestalt, which has interesting implications once you think about it.

I think you've missed my point, so I'll use an analogy.

Oftentimes, when black people are talking about how past racism accounts for a poor, lower class population of blacks today, people will interject to say, "But there are poor white people too; why are we only concerned with poor black people?" First of all, it's a discussion about black poverty; black people are not obligated to talk about white people when they are discussing their own poverty. Yes, there are poor white people and yes they don't all have super-awesome lives (though they are still better off than their black analogues, based on every research study out in the last few decades). But that is a discussion unrelated to black poverty (considering the reasons for it are completely different), and belongs elsewhere.

But secondly (and more to the point I raised in that paragraph you cited): if someone is so concerned with broadening the discussion to be not about just black people, but a broader discussion of poverty, then what about Latino poverty? Native American poverty? Etc? Why is it (mostly white) people say "Well we have problems too, so let's broaden the discussion to the point where it's not just about you" in response to a black person's discussion of black issues,, but they only think to expand the discussion to the point where it includes their (i.e., the dominant demographic's) perspective?

Does that seem as odd to you as it does to me? Have you seen as many examples of, say, Latino people interrupting a discussion about black poverty to say "This conversation doesn't include analysis of my problems, and it should"? How often do these (mostly white) commentators also say "Latinos are also poor; let's talk about them, whites, Native Americans, Asians...rather than just black people"? What is really behind their request to include their problems in the discussion?

I think you missed my point, which was, "Since you brought it up, sure let's talk about that. It's certainly a related topic, and since the ball's in my court, I guess I'll start." As opposed to "How dare you bring up that there is evidence counter to my statement, or that maybe an issue isn't as gendered as I am letting on? OMG MISOGYNIST MANSPLAINERS DERAIL EVERYTHING!!1!oneone!"

It's worth noting per your later example that no one is claiming that the problem simply doesn't apply to Latinos at all despite evidence suggesting otherwise. Or in this case "video game character writing is terrible all around, pretending it's female specific isn't helpful." That she intentionally trolled 4chan so she could get "proof" of how misogynist the "gamer community" is (not that 4chan only has one response to being poked at, or anything) to play the victim card (ironically painting herself as a damsel in distress to get more funding to say how terrible the concept of a damsel in distress is =p) doesn't help opinions of her either.

Schadrach:That is the source of the 77 cents number. It does not group by career or education. As you start comparing on other factors, the gap gets smaller and smaller, which is why the 77 cents number is so often used (as the goal of those persons is to make it as big a problem as possible).

That depends on the factors that you compare and how you compare them, I would imagine.

Yes, yes it does. As I mentioned in the post you quoted from, studies trying to do exactly that typically come up with numbers in the 0.93-1.07 range, depending on how they treat the confounding variables. 0.95-0.98 is typical of the results, or a 2-5% gap that can't be attributed to other known influences.

Schadrach:If I were to compare my total earnings to a theoretical woman who is in the same position and paid the same hourly rate (I say theoretical because we are a small business and I'm a one person department) but has the work habits of most of my female coworkers (that is to say, eschews non-mandatory overtime despite it being offered) she would make "73 cents on the dollar" merely due to differences in hours. I am typically working 50 hour weeks, while every female employee we have is typically working 40 hour weeks. Many of the production employees work even longer weeks than I do. The thing is, we're not unusual in that regard -- the vast majority of overtime is worked by men.

Is this based on research as well or just personal experience? And is this comparing like jobs to like jobs? Because the women and men where I work spend equal amounts of time in the office (assuming we're talking about people in the same position; support people don't spend as much time as people doing the "main" work).

There is research showing that men work a large majority of overtime (and that is certainly the case at my workplace as well).

The *example* was based on me positing another theoretical individual who was paid at the same hourly rate I was, but opted not to take available non-mandatory overtime. Literally the "no overtime vs average overtime" gap at my workplace has one earning "73 cents on the dollar". It's a side effect of the number not being based on pay rates but on total earnings, and overtime being paid at an increased rate. A demonstration of the concept and how much difference it can make fairly quickly, nothing more.

Do you have examples of the research (my response to this one was more of a blatant request for it than for the first point)?

Schadrach:Differences in work history is another. Pregnancy is bad for a woman's career, because it means significant time off of work, which effects promotions (between missing opportunities to prove oneself and needing to get back up to speed), in much the same fashion as prolonged illness does. Whereas men in hourly positions tend to be chomping at the bit for more overtime when their wife/girlfriend is pregnant or has recently had a child, to soften the financial stress of, well, babies being expensive and the mother necessarily missing some work.

The fact that maternity leave isn't required to be provided (which allows the father to earn money while his wife can't because she's recovering from what can amount to a surgical procedure) likely has something to do with this as well.

Even if maternity leave is provided, a childbirth is going to delay a woman's career by delaying promotion, maternity leave not being required exacerbates that.

Unless the woman stays home longer than three months to deal with the child, it shouldn't (in theory) account for a significant delay in promotion, and (in theory) shouldn't account for a statistically significant dip in pay compared to similar male co-workers. It'd be interesting see how much time women take off, on average (when I have time I'll look that up and revisit this).

I think you missed my point, which was, "Since you brought it up, sure let's talk about that. It's certainly a related topic, and since the ball's in my court, I guess I'll start."

Well I did mention at least once that discussions about a specific demographic should stick to that demographic (i.e., anyone who wants to expand the conversation or speak about another demographic should start a new conversation rather than subverting the current one for that purpose), so at least part of my point was still lost. :P

As opposed to "How dare you bring up that there is evidence counter to my statement, or that maybe an issue isn't as gendered as I am letting on? OMG MISOGYNIST MANSPLAINERS DERAIL EVERYTHING!!1!oneone!"

Thanks for the laugh. The problem is, citing man pecs in a discussion on how women are portrayed in games, isn't "evidence counter to {Kickstarter girl's} statement," which is "women aren't portrayed fairly in games." Had she said "All women in games are terrible and all men in games are awesome" you'd have a leg to stand on, but that wasn't the case. In terms of "maybe an issue isn't as gendered as I am letting on," this stance clearly ignores the intent and thinking behind how various demographics are portrayed, and paints the entire conversation in an over-simplified "Well things aren't exactly the way I personally want either, so the issue is the same" light, which is disingenuous to the discussion.

Regardless of whether men personally feel like they want to engage in power fantasies, or regardless of whether they actually appreciate the chisled man pecs, the fact is male characters are made like this to attempt to appeal to men (i.e., the perceived target demographic, even though women are starting to play games as a whole more than men). Developers make these characters because they think this is what men want. They very obviously aren't made this way to appeal to women (even if they do appeal to many women; certainly there are women who find them sexy).

On the other side of that, regardless of whether women personally feel objectified by the slutty costumes or they actually find them empowering, it's clear that for the most part, these characters are not intended to appeal to women, are not intended to serve as sexual or power fantasies for women, etc. They are also meant to appeal to men. And again, even if there are men who also find them disgusting or don't find them attractive or appealing (such men, of course, exist), and even if there are women who want these characters in their games (such women, of course, exist), the fact of the matter is that developers are still making them because they think this is what men want.

(And for the sake of inclusiveness, considering most trans and hermaphrodite characters I've seen tend to be portrayed as traps or similar sexual roles that clearly don't seem to be meant to appeal to those groups of people, the same issue arises.)

So we have this dynamic where men are depicted one way in order to appeal to a male demographic, and everyone else is also depicted one way in order to appeal to a male demographic. If one can't see a problem with that that does cause the issue to be pretty gendered, then said person is probably beyond help at this point.

Which isn't to say one can never portray a female character in a manner that is meant to appeal to men, etc; but when all female characters that people complain about tend to share that quality, it shows us something.

THAT's why it's "derailing" the conversation; because it's missing the entire point of the conversation.

It's worth noting per your later example that no one is claiming that the problem simply doesn't apply to Latinos at all despite evidence suggesting otherwise. Or in this case "video game character writing is terrible all around, pretending it's female specific isn't helpful."

The problem (which is explained in greater detail by other people on the internet) is that it's another example of a majority demographic (who either doesn't understand or care about the problem) trying to both downplay the significance of the problem, while adding themselves into the conversation. It's a subtle but common thing people in power positions (not necessarily just in terms of race/sex/etc, but also just in general) do to assert "Hey, I have a problem that on the surface seems exactly the same as yours and I'm fine, so let's stop talking about your problem" and more often than not it is accompanied by a degree of "me me me" that can only be achieved by being in a position of power for so long you don't even remember ever getting there.

That she intentionally trolled 4chan so she could get "proof" of how misogynist the "gamer community" is (not that 4chan only has one response to being poked at, or anything) to play the victim card (ironically painting herself as a damsel in distress to get more funding to say how terrible the concept of a damsel in distress is =p) doesn't help opinions of her either.

Even assuming she purposefully put the link there so that she'd get bad comments...it's not like posting a link requires everyone to send her death and rape threats. People on 4chan, if there really was no issue, wouldn't have responded so poorly, and her scheme to look like a damsel in distress (she's not exactly asking anyone to "save" her, so I think your label's wrong) would have fallen flat on its face, because it would have proved that there really is no need for her videos, because everyone is already able and willing to hold intellectual discussions about the topic. In other words, her motives (you assume they were sinister, I'll remain neutral), neither excuse nor change the fact that people were so bigoted and hateful that they felt the need to post over-the-top-terrible comments in reaction to her video; which in fact proved her point that women aren't being viewed fairly, when it was so easy to pull these people out of the woodwork for a project about women, but there are dozens of other projects asking for more to make other videos, or are asking for money for arguably less important topics, who have not gotten and likely would never get that kind of response from 4chan (or Youtube or anywhere else, for that matter). Regardless of how she made the point, she proved she has a point (and we can debate whether her point is valid or not once we have the videos to actually critique).

Even assuming she purposefully put the link there so that she'd get bad comments...it's not like posting a link requires everyone to send her death and rape threats. People on 4chan, if there really was no issue, wouldn't have responded so poorly, and her scheme to look like a damsel in distress (she's not exactly asking anyone to "save" her, so I think your label's wrong) would have fallen flat on its face, because it would have proved that there really is no need for her videos, because everyone is already able and willing to hold intellectual discussions about the topic. In other words, her motives (you assume they were sinister, I'll remain neutral), neither excuse nor change the fact that people were so bigoted and hateful that they felt the need to post over-the-top-terrible comments in reaction to her video; which in fact proved her point that women aren't being viewed fairly, when it was so easy to pull these people out of the woodwork for a project about women, but there are dozens of other projects asking for more to make other videos, or are asking for money for arguably less important topics, who have not gotten and likely would never get that kind of response from 4chan (or Youtube or anywhere else, for that matter). Regardless of how she made the point, she proved she has a point (and we can debate whether her point is valid or not once we have the videos to actually critique).

Well, this is disingenuous reasoning. Seriously. Your answer is that by the fact she created a controversy by poking volatile self righteous assholes, it shows gamers aren't responsible enough to have a real discussion on the topic? What sort of half-assed logic is that? Even more so when the community here, a far better representation of gamers rather then anonymous asshats jumping on a hate bandwagon, has been having the discussion from a variety of stances and opinions relating to the topic.

Honestly, lets apply this to other such hot topics? Religion? Well, neither side can discuss it since we have the likes of the Westburo baptist or the occasional militant atheist. How about politics? Pick a side, you can find a high number of brain dead asshats on both side of the isle.

The problem with this reasoning, with this topic in general, is the way it is set up. It is nothing but a confirmation bias. You get asshats? Means there is a problem with gamers. You get people discussing the topic more in depth? Means the is depth enough to justify the topic, therefore there is a problem. You do see how this logic, when applied to any other topic looks ridiculous, right? How you can support whatever stance you want with it? Hell, you want a better parallel, lets use race. Go out, find some militant nutters on the web, be they nazi's, black panther-esc, whatever. Then post you're asking for money to do a video series on the plight of the people they seem to hate. Then through up your youtube channel and watch as the comment spam rolls in. Take a screen shot of the vile and hatred and tell me it is really that different then the sort she got.

Now, before you start, this is not trying to derail the conversation at this point, this is me trying to express the problems of logic in how the argument is being presented.

This topic of sexism and video games has some merit, though I think it is better concentrated on the whys of it and underlying issues. Trying to point to examples of asshats being asshats after posting in the asshat's home to entice them to being asshats in public is only evidence of one thing: There are asshats on the internet, something NO ONE needs to be told about.

Trying to present her case as someone special or unique in it's justification of her position is, flat out, sexist. It comes off as condescending, both dismissive of the reality of the net, and the countless other hot-button issues because of the asshats that lurk with strong opinion and intolerant attitudes behind veils of anonymity, and like you are making a special case for her, because of her gender, defining a sexist ideal that her plight is somehow worth rallying against more then others, that what happens to her is somehow different enough and worse enough to merit a special consideration. In short, it looks like that side of the argument wants to be treated different because of gender.

As a result, it has not been possible to develop reliable estimates of the total percentage of the raw gender wage gap for which all of the factors that have been separately found to contribute to the gap collectively account. In this study, an attempt has been made to use data from a large cross-sectional database, the Outgoing Rotation Group files of the 2007 CPS, to construct variables that satisfactorily characterize factors whose effects have previously been estimated only using longitudinal data, so that reliable estimates of those effects can be derived in an analysis of the cross-sectional data. Specifically, variables have been developed to represent career interruption among workers with specific gender, age, and number of children. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent.

Didn't bother to go further, though there are other studies to the same general effect.

minuialear:Do you have examples of the research (my response to this one was more of a blatant request for it than for the first point)?

minuialear:Unless the woman stays home longer than three months to deal with the child, it shouldn't (in theory) account for a significant delay in promotion, and (in theory) shouldn't account for a statistically significant dip in pay compared to similar male co-workers. It'd be interesting see how much time women take off, on average (when I have time I'll look that up and revisit this).

If you miss less than three months of work at a time, it shouldn't have a significant effect on your career? That's interesting to know. It would be interesting to have that data, though. One of the major things that negatively effects a woman's lifetime earnings is having children and the number of children had, and is noted as a major factor in the study linked above.

minuialear:Regardless of whether men personally feel like they want to engage in power fantasies, or regardless of whether they actually appreciate the chisled man pecs, the fact is male characters are made like this to attempt to appeal to men (i.e., the perceived target demographic, even though women are starting to play games as a whole more than men).

Are they? The last numbers I'd seen on that said women were a large minority, 40-odd percent, but I don't have it handy.

Even assuming she purposefully put the link there so that she'd get bad comments...it's not like posting a link requires everyone to send her death and rape threats. People on 4chan, if there really was no issue, wouldn't have responded so poorly, and her scheme to look like a damsel in distress (she's not exactly asking anyone to "save" her, so I think your label's wrong) would have fallen flat on its face, because it would have proved that there really is no need for her videos, because everyone is already able and willing to hold intellectual discussions about the topic.

She didn't just "put the link there", she spammed the hell out of 4chan (there are screenshots with several therads for the video on screen at once, and more than one such screenshot). 4chan isn't known for it's emotional range, either: It has 3 settings, 1. Making memes, 2. Laughing at memes, 3. BOUNDLESS DESTRUCTIVE RAGE. It essentially doesn't matter who you are or what you stand for with them. It's rather like grabbing a hornet's nest, shaking it, breaking it in half, shoving it down your pants, and acting like being stung is proof of an underlying problem with everywhere outside.

These are also the same people who dressed like Death Eaters so they could run around Half-Blood Prince release parties shouting that "Snape Kills Dumbledore." Who compromise people's facebook accounts to cover them in homosexual porn and call in death threats if they can get your number. They literally do things that piss off/scare people to piss off/scare them because that's what they get their kicks from. The most "good" they've ever been in relation to anything were the Anonymous Scientology protests (which doubled as a test of whether or not they could get large scale coordinated RL actions to happen).

minuialear: In other words, her motives (you assume they were sinister, I'll remain neutral), neither excuse nor change the fact that people were so bigoted and hateful that they felt the need to post over-the-top-terrible comments in reaction to her video; which in fact proved her point that women aren't being viewed fairly, when it was so easy to pull these people out of the woodwork for a project about women, but there are dozens of other projects asking for more to make other videos, or are asking for money for arguably less important topics, who have not gotten and likely would never get that kind of response from 4chan (or Youtube or anywhere else, for that matter). Regardless of how she made the point, she proved she has a point (and we can debate whether her point is valid or not once we have the videos to actually critique).

The timing of it is very unusual if her motives were neutral. She waited until near the end of her kickstarter campaign to put the video up on YouTube, stirred a hornet's nest (and she's internet savvy enough to *know* exactly where agitating 4chan leads) (also, either she started the spamflood herself, or someone watching her video feed closely did, because the 4chan spam started immediately on video upload). She knew they would come, because 4chan *always* attacks anything that irritates them in the slightest. That left plenty of time to scrape up some examples of the kinds of horror that 4chan unleashes (her most immediately noticeable trait was "female" so that's where the attacks were targeted, again standard 4chan response), post it on her blog showing all the unfounded attacks against her and how it's proof that the "gamer community" is terrible, get on game news sites (the only part of this she couldn't reliably predict in any detail) and make bank off of white knights and (to use Shakesville's imagery) teaspooners.

Which is, by the way, a very unusual pattern of funding for a KS campaign, if you compare to other wildly successful ones. Typically small spikes when limited content awards and new stretch goals come out, and a big one on the last day (from people who were one the fence and got the reminder email).

Also, sorry for taking so long to reply, between work and the Secret World ARG thing, I've not been quick about it (ALL GLORY TO THE PAPER WALL *twitch*).

Richardplex:Wow. Talk about one sided journalism. For a rational view of why people are against this that isn't just picking youtube comments, which are vile on every subject under the sun, and calling it news, here:

So... he talks about documentaries needing to be unbiased, and then goes on to be incredibly biased himself. Wonderful. A lot of the things he said seems to be opinion based, like how 'everyone already understands this subject already.' I highly doubt this is true. That's not to say he doesn't make valid points, just that those points seem to be masked by pure hate for the kickstarter. And I wouldn't call that video very rational either considering it's mainly just him bitching about things he doesn't like.

Um, he isn't doing a documentary?[snip...]

Sarkeesian is not doing a documentary either. Her project is "a 5-video series (now expanded to 12 videos) entitled Tropes vs Women in Video Games, exploring female character stereotypes" (from the Kickstarter description). In fact, the word "documentary" doesn't even exist on the project home page. See for yourself: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games

The "Stupid Shitty Kickstarter Documentaries" video wrongly labels Sarkeesian's project as a documentary and then proceeds to criticize her for not living up to the creator's vision of the documentary genre. This is a glaring, laughable failure. He shot his own high horse; it's pretty hard to take anything he says seriously after that.

Back to the article. Although Grey only mentioned the YouTube comments in his story, Sarkeesian also recieved rape and death threats through her website and deeply depressing (if perhaps predictable) vandalism to her Wikipedia page. This story is not simply about YouTube comments.

For those who don't think this is news, Wired, Forbes, Guardian, and other news outlets disagree. Of course, looking at the project page on Kickstarter or FeministFrequency (http://www.feministfrequency.com/ ) would have gotten you this all information in a much more timely fashion.

And for those who aren't sure why we should care about this kind of harassment, Jay Smooth explains it pretty well: http://vimeo.com/44117178

I realize I'm a bit late to this party but I had to say something about that video's fabricated objection because it seemed like no one else had (I looked).

Therumancer:there is literally zero good that can come from anything that she claims to represent, since the issue she is "addressing" doesn't exist

Wait.

I am trying to think of characters I can play that are flat-chested women.

Actually, any female characters at all that have boobs smaller than a D-cup.

Can't play them on World of Warcraft. Can't play them on Rock Band. Heck, I think the only place I can play girls without big boobs is when the characters are childlike or cartoony (and sometimes even the kids are sexed up, see e.g. 15-year-old Rikku from Final Fantasy X).

But let's get back to your argument:

Therumancer:how would you try and shut her down if you were of a mind to do so? You can say you wouldn't engage in E-intimidation, but at the same time it's not like there are any other recourses.

So, when someone says something you don't like, or engages in a study attempting to prove a position you disagree with, the proper response is to gag them? What the hell, man?

Let's try this: All the people in the world get to say things, and some of them will be right and a lot of them will be wrong. And you can choose which ones you listen to. But you don't have any right to go around deciding which ones OTHER PEOPLE get to listen to. Let alone deciding which ones other people give their money to.

I mean, clearly enough people disagree with your premise (they think this issue exists and is worth discussing) that they managed to raise all the money she needed in, what, 24 hours?

You ever hear the quote "I may disagree with what you're saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it?" Or here's one I read the other day: "We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes."

People are free to differ. No one should be praising people for shutting them up.

Sorry about delay in response, I've been busy and for some reason the Escapist was locking up the last few days.

Also for the record there are plenty of women who come in below a D-cup in video games, heck some games like STO, Saint's Row, and others even give you sliders. Two that come to mind right off the bat are Final Fantasy characters, Rikku (one of the most enduringly popular), and Garnet/Dagger. Lina Inverse has gotten several "Slayers" games in Japan as well, and that's just off the top of my head.

Do not misunderstand my point here either, there is a differance between not giving someone a platform, and gagging them. Crackpots have the right to rant and rave, but that does not mean they should be elevated to a position of being able to do it in front of millions of people.

Yes, our vlogger has managed to meet her goal, I do not consider that a good thing (obviously) nor do those who set out to try and stop her, in this case they happened to fail.

Just as a general inquiry, is there a reason why you skip parts of my posts and only respond to other parts? Particularly, I'm referring to when I responded to your "women are starting to earn more than men" comment and 90% of the response to your strawman argument.

I'm also going to have to be rather slow on the replies, so no worries.

As a result, it has not been possible to develop reliable estimates of the total percentage of the raw gender wage gap for which all of the factors that have been separately found to contribute to the gap collectively account. In this study, an attempt has been made to use data from a large cross-sectional database, the Outgoing Rotation Group files of the 2007 CPS, to construct variables that satisfactorily characterize factors whose effects have previously been estimated only using longitudinal data, so that reliable estimates of those effects can be derived in an analysis of the cross-sectional data. Specifically, variables have been developed to represent career interruption among workers with specific gender, age, and number of children. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent.

Didn't bother to go further, though there are other studies to the same general effect.

Still working through this one; will probably have to get back to you on it.

Are you from the Netherlands? Have we been arguing about wage equality within two different countries this entire time? :P

If you miss less than three months of work at a time, it shouldn't have a significant effect on your career? That's interesting to know. It would be interesting to have that data, though. One of the major things that negatively effects a woman's lifetime earnings is having children and the number of children had, and is noted as a major factor in the study linked above.

It might set you back that many months (maybe add an extra month), but I can't see any fair situation where missing three months of work (or less) would cause someone to be set back a year or more in terms of promotion. So indeed, that could be part of the problem (maybe it's worth also comparing this to disability time off, to see if it's a gendered issue).

Are they? The last numbers I'd seen on that said women were a large minority, 40-odd percent, but I don't have it handy.

She didn't just "put the link there", she spammed the hell out of 4chan (there are screenshots with several therads for the video on screen at once, and more than one such screenshot).4chan isn't known for it's emotional range, either: It has 3 settings, 1. Making memes, 2. Laughing at memes, 3. BOUNDLESS DESTRUCTIVE RAGE. It essentially doesn't matter who you are or what you stand for with them. It's rather like grabbing a hornet's nest, shaking it, breaking it in half, shoving it down your pants, and acting like being stung is proof of an underlying problem with everywhere outside.

Do you have proof that she's the one who did all the spamming? I can just as easily see someone on 4chan putting it up on 4chan "for the lulz" as I can see her doing it to get a bunch of people to rape-threat her.

Also I wanna point out the comments posted in (what I assume is) her blog (i.e., the ones I'm referring to, at least) are from YouTube; while YouTube isn't known for its great userbase either, posting something on YouTube isn't quite the same thing and doesn't automatically illicit negative responses just for the sake of negativity (as is the case on 4chan a lot). YouTube people who post terrible things usually do so because they are, in fact, terrible people.

The timing of it is very unusual if her motives were neutral. She waited until near the end of her kickstarter campaign to put the video up on YouTube, stirred a hornet's nest (and she's internet savvy enough to *know* exactly where agitating 4chan leads) (also, either she started the spamflood herself, or someone watching her video feed closely did, because the 4chan spam started immediately on video upload).

...

It didn't sound like she had a whole lot of money before the video went up, so maybe it was a last-minute effort to get to her target? Maybe she never did a Kickstarter before so she didn't get how it worked (or she assumed she was awesome enough to get the money without the extra video)? Maybe she put it up somewhere else before, it didn't get a lot of views, so she put it up on YouTube? Maybe she just sucks at timing? There are plenty of scenarios we can draw from it.

I mean, your theory is possible, I'll give you that. Especially if we assume she's an incredibly sinister person (which is possible; I can't say I've seen enough of her stuff to say for a fact that she isn't).

On the other hand...

runic knight:Well, this is disingenuous reasoning. Seriously. Your answer is that by the fact she created a controversy by poking volatile self righteous assholes, it shows gamers aren't responsible enough to have a real discussion on the topic?

Er, not quite. My answer is that by showing that there are people (not just on 4chan; the video started on YouTube, remember?) who would rather threaten her physically than allow her to say her piece (regardless of whether her piece is worth saying), it was demonstrated that there's still a very vocal and large division of the gaming community that's flat-out oppressive or boys-club-y to women, and that there's another large division of the gaming community that evidently never noticed how bad this other division was but is trying to rationalize their insanity. I.e., it shows that there are a lot of gamers who do in fact need some education on the topic, either because they're still bigoted idiots or because they aren't bigoted idiots, but they (whether because they misunderstand the problem or for other reasons) feel the need to justify portions of the bigoted idiots's behavior for some reason. Either way, effective dialogue (and by "effective" I mean "can actually cause some people to change some stuff") can't really be had until at least the second group is brought up to speed.

The rest of your post is pretty long and I'm not even sure if it's worth me going through it, considering I assume it all works off of this.

Er, not quite. My answer is that by showing that there are people (not just on 4chan; the video started on YouTube, remember?) who would rather threaten her physically than allow her to say her piece (regardless of whether her piece is worth saying), it was demonstrated that there's still a very vocal and large division of the gaming community that's flat-out oppressive or boys-club-y to women, and that there's another large division of the gaming community that evidently never noticed how bad this other division was but is trying to rationalize their insanity. I.e., it shows that there are a lot of gamers who do in fact need some education on the topic, either because they're still bigoted idiots or because they aren't bigoted idiots, but they (whether because they misunderstand the problem or for other reasons) feel the need to justify portions of the bigoted idiots's behavior for some reason. Either way, effective dialogue (and by "effective" I mean "can actually cause some people to change some stuff") can't really be had until at least the second group is brought up to speed.

The rest of your post is pretty long and I'm not even sure if it's worth me going through it, considering I assume it all works off of this.

You should have read it. If only because I am wordy and tend to try to explain what I mean and why I think that, rather then just my opinion in my own words. Helps in expressing what I am trying to say better then assuming you'll understand.

Now, again, you make the same mistake. A "very vocal and large division of the gaming community" is a disingenuous claim. You're basing this off the reaction to her, that were also reactions to her kicking over the bee's nest. By linking to her youtube video to 4chan.

I find it hard to word right, but please, let me try. As said in my last post, this is only evidence of assholes on the web, nothing more. You can not claim every poster was some sort of deep gamer arguing because of how it affected their hobby, yet your claim of divisions is based in that unspoken assertion. I wonder how many were just trolls, or boys-club-y jerks opposing it because it was a women. You are attributing the reaction to a combination of properties of those who make it up. Males+gamer. While there is a rationality to this (the topic is about gender + games after all), this is flawed. Part may be because of gamers, part may be because of sexist assholes who don't actually play and part may be a mix of the two. Hell, some might have been trolls just being jerks jumping on the hate bandwagon, as is kinda common with 4chan from what news has shown. You present it like the wall of hate was a knee jerk reaction from male gamers upset, when it could well have been a wave of backlash from a collective of groups. That is deceptive, and you, like her, come off as disingenuous when presenting it as such.

The way it comes off as you presenting is there is divisions of groups of gamers, from the ones who as against women like this, the oblivious ones and then the ones who aren't. The ones who are against women railed against her, the ones who are oblivious are defending the reaction, and the rest supported her. That is just bull though.

The 4chan thing suggests, possibly highly so, that not all the vile reaction was merely male gamers reacting to her idea. Trolls post hate for the sake of it, and I have seen reaction from self righteous male groups slamming feminists on issues solely for being feminists, with no connection or reason beyond their hate towards them. Suggesting it was naught but male gamer's reaction is a claim not proven, and now questioned. And if not proven, it makes your claims of divisions in the gaming community along those lines as, well, kinda unfounded.

There is also the aspect that people can be dicks regardless of playing games. It is a hobby, and how much does one have to play to be claimed part of the community? Hardcore MoH fiends or even casual play of the Sims? If it is too broad, then of course you will find bigots in the mix. But at that point, saying that there are divisions on an issue of gender representation comes off as trying to find an excuse to justify the claim. If I cast a big enough net, I can find what I am looking for, but it doesn't really back up the claims made about it and comes off as intellectually dishonest. If it is too narrow though, you run the risk of having to back up why it is narrowed like that, and weird aspects of data will mess up the argument there. You know, the idea of only mainstream games when "casual" games have often made boatloads more money, or where indie games apply.

Gamers are a diverse people. You get people of all genders and all walks of life and yes, all political and philosophical tastes and notions. And even more, they might have tastes similar despite being wildly different personality wise. I keep getting this vibe that you are assuming there is a segment of male gamers who are sexist. The problem is, that really, there are just some sexists who play video games. Same as there is a segment of feminists who play games. Games are a hobby and pass time. They don't differentiate who plays them or why, and beyond game makers trying to garnish more sales through whatever ploy for attention, they just seem an interactive story telling medium. One could argue the same way you have about literature, and how there is a division in readers between those who are sexist, those who are oblivious and those who are not. Or movies, about how there is a division in movie goers between those who are sexist, those who are oblivious and those who are not.

We all know there are nutters, assholes, racists, sexists and crazies in a part of the audience for all story telling mediums. Hell, they are present in society itself. So, is there a division between your three categories there as well? Sure you could say so, but to what effect? At that point, it shows that such distinctions really don't mean a damn thing. They never did here either.

In the end you have the reactions of a load of asshats as evidence of your claim. Unfortunately, you are not looking at a cross section of the gaming community, even one half-assed taken with a measure of scientific procedure or understanding of restraint of bias, you are looking ta a wall of comments on a youtube channel that was spammed all over 4chan as though they represent something more then they are just to back up your assertion. As I said before, I can do the same thing on any topic of religion, politics or whatever else where people take enough interest.

I will agree there is issues with gender tropes in gaming. But there is a lot of issues in gaming as a whole and a lot of underlying causes to them as well, connected many together. And even while I think it is stupid to concentrate on a single symptom of the problem in gaming today like she has, I don't mind this topic, so long as it is actually presented right. This seems off though. Like an argument not fully formed or fleshed out and being pointed at for relevance. This was a spectacle and generalization and is worthless for a real discussion.

Alright, I skimmed the whole thing this time, but I think the only paragraph worth responding directly to is this one, considering the rest of the post feels like a repeat of it:

runic knight:As said in my last post, this is only evidence of assholes on the web, nothing more. You can not claim every poster was some sort of deep gamer arguing because of how it affected their hobby, yet your claim of divisions is based in that unspoken assertion. I wonder how many were just trolls, or boys-club-y jerks opposing it because it was a women. You are attributing the reaction to a combination of properties of those who make it up. Males+gamer. While there is a rationality to this (the topic is about gender + games after all), this is flawed. Part may be because of gamers, part may be because of sexist assholes who don't actually play and part may be a mix of the two. Hell, some might have been trolls just being jerks jumping on the hate bandwagon, as is kinda common with 4chan from what news has shown. You present it like the wall of hate was a knee jerk reaction from male gamers upset, when it could well have been a wave of backlash from a collective of groups. That is deceptive, and you, like her, come off as disingenuous when presenting it as such.

I never claimed "every poster was some sort of deep gamer." Clearly not every single person targeting that girl was a gamer. But the ones who were (and, arguably, the majority were) demonstrated something poignant about the state of current gaming culture; namely, that while there are gamers who have moved past the sexism and the justifying subtle sexism, there are plenty that haven't yet. This is only magnified when looking at discussions on actual gaming forums (and for the sake of making sure the argument isn't made again: I'm aware not everyone in a gaming forum is necessarily a gamer; that's besides the point).

Let's be honest: sure, a lot of the people posting could know absolutely nothing about games and could have just commented for the sake of trolling, keeping up the "patriarchy," etc; but it's just as likely (based on the nature of many of the comments) that a majority were in fact knee-jerk reactions from gamers. Getting upset over the fact that I didn't explicitly name every other type of person who might have spewed hate is frankly missing the point and the result of a myopic look at the overall message. Rather than get defensive, try looking at the big picture and debating its merits/lack thereof instead?

I never claimed "every poster was some sort of deep gamer." Clearly not every single person targeting that girl was a gamer. But the ones who were (and, arguably, the majority were) demonstrated something poignant about the state of current gaming culture; namely, that while there are gamers who have moved past the sexism and the justifying subtle sexism, there are plenty that haven't yet. This is only magnified when looking at discussions on actual gaming forums (and for the sake of making sure the argument isn't made again: I'm aware not everyone in a gaming forum is necessarily a gamer; that's besides the point).

Let's be honest: sure, a lot of the people posting could know absolutely nothing about games and could have just commented for the sake of trolling, keeping up the "patriarchy," etc; but it's just as likely (based on the nature of many of the comments) that a majority were in fact knee-jerk reactions from gamers. Getting upset over the fact that I didn't explicitly name every other type of person who might have spewed hate is frankly missing the point and the result of a myopic look at the overall message. Rather than get defensive, try looking at the big picture and debating its merits/lack thereof instead?

But that is just part of the problem. You're looking at the vocal people. Now, we've already gone over that some are probably trolls, or people fighting the battle because it relates to women, rather then any care for games. We've gone over that she kicked the bee's nest in spamming 4chan and that it is misleading to say the least to point at the response she got as one concerning gamers when it more likely fits that of the personality of 4chan.

Now, lets remind people of the other aspect: you're looking at the vocal. You are aware there is usually a big difference between the number of views something gets and the number of ratings/comments. That is generally because people watch, probably go "meh" and carry on. The people polarized, strongly biased or strongly emotional will reply. And in far, far greater numbers then the rational, the disinterested, and the milder opinions in both directions.

The reason I am calling this point up is because it is used, by you and her, as a form of support of the argument. There is made an argument as such, as near as I have seen.

Premise: If Male gamers respond badly to the proposed feminist video, it means they are not ready for a discussion on the matter.Input: Youtube comments responded with vile and hatred.Therefore: Gamers's aren't ready.

The premise is flawed and you point at the youtube comment section as meeting the condition of the premise, when it doesn't, exactly.

The comment section, as I have explained, is not limited to gamers and have now also mentioned relatively devoid of most center opinions. A section left to the vocal to be loud, and one set up to receive the angry horrors of a rattled cage that is 4chan. So an open wall for people to spew hate, created to receive hate. You would be better trying to convince me the streets are filled with shit by pointing at a septic tank and going "well, look at all the shit there, must be an epidemic."

It just is not compelling when you look at it. It comes of as an attempt to force justification by making a controversy. this in turn makes me question it's relevance at all.

And that is the problem. At this point it isn't even the damn topic, it is the tactic used and the argument attempted to justify itself. I can't even get into what issues I have with the topic itself because I have to dig through a wall of shit that is the argument itself.Now, like I said before, you could do this with any controversial topic. Religion, politics, race, gender...It doesn't matter. The mere fact you CAN do this with any of them is not a sign the "majority of the participants of group A can't discuss the topic", it is a sign someone messed up and doesn't understand how to prepare a compelling argument.

Here, I'll demonstrate. Lets do race. 1. We'll make a vid saying we want to discuss race in media. 2. We'll spam it across a white nationalist website's forum. 3. We'll them let them bombard the comment section, take a screenshot and point at it. Therefore: Obviously, white people just can't discuss this topic at this time, am I right? And before you mention it, intentionally choosing a place that represents the worse part of the group to antagonize is exactly what she did with her video. 4chan is well know as the asshole of the interwebs and where a lot of horrible trolls live.

The problem with this is the same that plagues the news media in painting games as the cause of violence. There is so much missed for the sake of creating a simple, easy to work with sterotypes. They look at the loud ones as examples of the whole. Much like how Westburo is not an example of Christians as a whole, neither are a page of hate on youtube examples of gamers.

For crying out loud! 65% of households play video games, with 2/5 of the people playing as women, the rest, I assume, male (not sure how transgendered and the like were accounted for doesn't change much for this point). That is 39% of the population, of the whole American nation's population in this example, that are male gamers. I don't think youtube spam is the proper way to get a feel for a demograph that is 120 MILLION PEOPLE and growing. The sheer bravado of you, her, or anyone to think otherwise is beyond compare. You want to make an argument about the majority of the male gaming community, you go about it the right way and take into account that this is not just the loudmouths, the trolls and the youtube commenter. You can not in good reason or conscious point at the vocal as a representative of the whole. THAT is the mindset of a bigot justifying their belief, it is confirmation bias and I will be damned if you try to tell me it is somehow valid.

This isn't just me nitpicking over the portion of people who posted negatively who weren't gamers. This is me pointing out that what you got was a fraction of a fraction of a fraction who weren't even all gamers. Saying they represent ANYTHING pertaining to the 60% of gamers that are male is nothing short of bullshit.

I do not think I can make it any more clear then that. This is a matter of form I am arguing and the topic on this one could be sexism or jello pudding and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference why it doesn't work as presented. You can not support the claims about the gaming community in the way that has been done. Not with any degree of intellectual integrity on the matter. I will add that one of the reasons we can't have a civilized discussion on the topic is because of cheap bullshit argument claims like this meant to lump people into groups and paint stereotypes. This happens on both sides, and I have a habit of calling bullshit when I see, regardless which "camp" is doing it.

To be slightly fair here though, you could use the response she got as a support for a claim 4chan being a sexist hellhole. You'd still not be fully correct, trolls and Men's power jackasses and all, but at least you'd be far better off in terms of the response supporting the premise here.

TL:DRI'll make this short. There are over 120 million male videogamers, according to the basic data I found at the drop of the hat. Saying hate on a youtube channel, on a video that got just over 150 thousand views (not isolating for gender or gamer/not gamer status)and was spammed over the anus of the internet somehow represents that 120 million with any degree of legitimate value is wrong. It is not good logic, and it is not good ethics.

Premise: If Male gamers respond badly to the proposed feminist video, it means they are not ready for a discussion on the matter.Input: Youtube comments responded with vile and hatred.Therefore: Gamers's aren't ready.

The premise is flawed and you point at the youtube comment section as meeting the condition of the premise, when it doesn't, exactly.

I didn't say it universally applies to all gamers, or that the Youtube people were all gamers and thus were only representative of that demographic. But enough of them clearly were, to the point where they demonstrated a serious problem in the gamer community. But more importantly, the issue was magnified by the number of gamers (yes, gamers; not just random guys) who responded to that vocal bunch by excusing ("They're just 4chan"/"Well she doesn't really deserve the money, so I can understand the anger") or by ignoring their behavior (for a majority of cases, probably either believing that an event where someone is violently threatened simply for expressing a desire to express their opinion isn't worth commentary, or otherwise implying that the event was a non-issue). This seconond not-so-vocal group being just as important to my argument as the first, if not more so, because it's the most troubling of the two(from my perspective).

In other words, you're still zoomed into a small part of what I said (i.e., the part about the violent vocal group) and am making a big deal out of it, rather than looking at what I said as a whole (which included the not-so-violent group whose reaction was nevertheless very problematic and symptomatic of a lot of issues within the demographic).

Should I read the rest of this post, or is it all based off this argument?

Richardplex:Wow. Talk about one sided journalism. For a rational view of why people are against this that isn't just picking youtube comments and calling it news, here:

A) People can throw money wherever they like and support the projects they feel are important (and in this case, it is)

B) Don't point to a video of some asshole making ridicule of said project as an argument.

A) totally agree with you there. I disagree with him there at that - people can do whatever the fuck they want with their money

B) I disagree with. He makes a very valid point at the fact that this project is completely pointless. If you don't know who are bad female characters are in games, you have not played games. It is an issue, and everyone who is not misogynist knows it's an issue. But this idea is just a massive waste of money because the documentary is pointless - it's going to be, to use your words, some asshole making ridicule of obviously bad characters as an argument. This isn't going to sway anyone, this isn't going to inform anyone, this is just people pointing out obvious stuff that's been said 100s of times before.

It's an argument because this article is ridiculously biased towards it, it gives the impression of 'if you disagree with the documentary you're misogynistic'. When in reality, many might disagree because the whole thing is stupid. It can and has been done for free, many times, many have done, for free, a better way of addressing the issue. It's just a massive waste of time and money - time and money everyone has the right to throw away, as it is other people's right to disagree with the project and call it a waste.

Exactly what I was thinking when I read the article. The article seems to completely miss the point of what the actual problem here is. It's not the usual random/stupid youtube

Actually I would say that most of the actual commenters are naive (rather than hateful, misogynistic) and mostly children... or are joking, or simply hate kickstarter for good reasons but attack it in a bad way.